Ch. 2: The Men in Brown
Back to The Men in Brown '' He had never seen the tall hill, rising grim and green above the swampy vale, before, yet he knew its’ name and felt it, a brooding presence, a gutted place once great in evil: Knapp Hill, it was called, but once had been the Witches’ Retreat. He did not want to go near, but he had to, gliding through trees like a ghost, until he came to a high stony cliff. It had a patchwork appearance, some blocks fresh and brown and bare of moss, others deep in bladderwort and stonemoss. Part of it shimmered as he glided toward it, and then he went through it too, and found himself passing down a long rugged hall. The roof was blocky, but the floor was gravel, packed hard as a road. He passed deep wells, from one of which came a faint red light and a sound of murmering like tears. Another sound was growing, faint but steady, a throbbing rumble and a constant pounding. '' '' He passed into a side opening. A cave with a waterfall lay before him: from behind the falls came a red light, and with it the strange pounding and laboring. Now the falls were before him, and then falling mistily around him, and he was in a round tunnel; and then he came out into a place that could not possibly exist. '' '' Huge caverns, filled with forges and machinery in totally unrecognizable patterns and design, stretched around him. Huge engines throbbed and labored. Flashes of eerie light burst up, blue and green and pinkish-red. Deep powerful voices were singing in some harsh, crashing tongue that crackled like thunder: it made his teeth ache. He peered harder. Shapes were moving among the forges, moving with amazing speed and agility, short and stocky and shaped like men, hard bulging muscles on naked chests and arms thick with hair, and great beards braided and tied out of the way, leather breeches their only clothing in the great heats. There only seemed to be a few, though their speed gave them the impression of multitude. But these people were barely four feet high. '' '' “The Dwarves of yore made mighty spells, '' '' while hammers fell like ringing bells…” '' '' '' '' the chant sounded and echoed in his head, or maybe he was hearing those familiar words to that mysterious music, for the words were not in human language. The Dwarves were forging, but what they were forging was not easy to see. Every now and again one of them would trace a queer glowing letter in the air with what looked like a large pen, except it wrote on the air in lines of light. The letters were harsh and angular: runes, he knew instinctively. Runes of power, the gift of the Gods to the Dwarves against the Giants. '' '' The tallest Dwarf suddenly turned and looked him in the eye. “O wraith of human,” he said in an incredibly deep voice, “if thou come in the Road thou art welcome, but an thou dost not, my runes will pull thee from thy spying bed and slay thee.” '' '' Christopher heard himself speak. “I come upon the Road.” '' '' The great Dwarf inclined his head. “Then welcome.” '' '' “Who are you, sir?” Christopher asked. '' '' “I am Durin.” the Dwarf replied. “And we are the Seven Fathers of the Dwarves.” '' He sat up in his bed. The moonlight was shining slowly in the window. Something he remembered hearing a girl named Julian say at the library came into his head: “The virgin goddess, Diana of the Moon, can see you when the moon rests on you.” He shuddered and got out of the patch of cold blue light. He found it impossible to sleep. At last he got up and went to the door, opening it carefully. It was about four in the morning. He closed it quietly and stood on the second floor porch; Charlene’s family had the first floor. The cold blue moonlight lit the hilly half-wild neighborhood like a quiet deadly eye. There was a hiss of tires and a stooped figure in a bulky hooded coat shot downhill on a bike with a front basket: The Wizard, off on some mysterious errand. It was cold but still. Orange streetlights and blue moon cast the green leaves into a weird dark blue-greeness. He went down the stairs. It was warm and humid, though also night-cool. For some strange reason he wanted to visit the stream. Highland Lake, in a hollow of the hills some hundred fifty feet above the Winsted valley, drains into Mad River by a short but voluminous brook, which crashes down a sharp ravine before crossing under Boyd. Then it follows a rocky gulch and passes through tunnels beneath the old factories which once bore water wheels and turbines. Normally so loud at this time of year as to be heard through closed doors, the dry spring (despite the three days of rain and cold at the beginning of May) had reduced it to summer depths, and water trickled sullenly through the stones. Chris walked past the sagging carriage house and the small white vacant house to the cement bridge over the brook. Pushing aside the thick maple twigs with their new leaves he climbed over the guardrail and promptly found himself caught in old locust branches thrown here after the blizzard, and when he had escaped these and slithered and slid down a steep sandy bank under the young maples, he turned right under the wall of the bridge abutment and headed under the bridge. It was a nice place. Swells of bare rock with ridged grain on end rose up from the gulch the stream had made. To the right was the remains of the ancient ford, made likely long before the bridge, very old concrete poured into the streambed over rocks until it was level enough to form a ten-foot wide crossing. It was so worn that pebbles stuck half an inch out of the lumpy mass. The stream fell over the brink of this in a four-foot falls into the gulch, from which it poured over rocks into the stony lower bed. Despite the date of 1988 on the kerb above, calcite bulges were already marking the edges of the seams, and inch-long stubby hollow stalactites were growing above smooth calcium carbonate deposits on the stone swells. The stream fell in a small plashing trickle over the ledge into still black pools. “Not quite so early yet, was I expecting Christopher.” a voice said out of the darkness of the bridge. Christopher gasped and started to scramble back. “Hey now, here now, it’s a little dark for running! You need not be afraid of me, for you and I are known well; one knows of the other one, and the other he has heard of him.” Chris paused, hanging between fear and a vast, powerful fascination. “You know me?” he said. “Of course I know about you, lad; it’s you that needs the knowing! I’ve come here a long hard way, through aye and oft a wandering; for old John his home is gone, it drowned full many year ago: and he that had a forest home, he wanders all alone now.” “Who are you?” “Who? Ah, that’s a strange deep question, boy, too deep for easy answers. I’ve borne names aplenty but my names are not my nature. John I am called for now: John Wimbledon, will do now.” “Um, hi.” There was an echoing laugh from under the bridge. All the trees hummed and rustled, seeming to lean inward toward him. It was a sunlit, wry and merry voice, but sorrow throbbed beneath it. “High or low, here we go. I sought you out tonight, my lad, because things are now moving: because you have now seen in dreams the things that aye be happening.” “What things? You mean last year’s?” “The Road has returned.” John said. “The Men in Brown are coming to town, from the ends of the earth do they gather around.” He began to sing in a light, lilting tune, oddly carefree in that dark somber place: “The Men in Brown '' ''They came to town '' ''Upon a chill May morning '' '' '' ''Nine could you see '' ''If you had some glee '' ''About you in the lorning '' '' '' ''The Hill and the Wood '' ''The House of the Hood '' ''And the Blade and Bow abounding '' '' '' ''The son of the Air '' ''Who has overmuch hair '' ''And the Human-hater howling '' '' '' ''The old graveshand '' ''And the Leatherman '' ''And then last of all, John Wimble.” '' The voice sounded farther and farther away as it sang, and Christopher saw in the dark shadows of the ravine a short man, bowed but nimble,, with a hat that had a brim on it like those he’d seen old men wear to church. Then he was gone. Shakily Christopher snuck back inside. Fortunately today was Saturday. Chris slept late. It was almost nine by the time the sunshine pouring in his window was too bright for him to ignore, as well as the fact that it was stuffy. Yesterday evening had been really warm and humid, and today was just as warm. “Hey, you wanna go to the Falls?” said Chris to Stephen around noon. “The Falls dried up when the Dam vanished.” “Well, the river, then.” Mom said yes, as long as they were back in two hours and didn’t play in the ruin. The boys rolled their eyes. They headed out, walking down Hubbard St. The level road ran along the side of the hill, with peaked old tenement-townhouses on the downhill and more regular, newer houses on the uphill side. Some of their friends from the neighborhood were playing in the road, but the boys only said Hi and kept on going. “Hey! Where’re you guys off to?” Both of them groaned: Charlene had spotted them. She shot up on her scooter and skidded to a stop. “Isn’t Janice around somewhere?” said Stephen pointedly. Charlene and her best friend, the tubbier dark-haired Janice, frequently snubbed or ridiculed the boys when they happened to amble by together. “Naw, she was sick today.” “Lousy day to be sick.” said Chris. “We’re going to the river.” “Cool. Can I come?” Both boys gazed lugubriously at each other. “Only if you’re nice.” said Christopher. “Aww, Chris!” wailed his brother. “Hey, someone has to keep you out of trouble.” “Hmp.” said Charlene, but she rode her scooter beside them slowly and remained otherwise silent. They came to the four-way where John St climbed up the hill, a charming crossroads under a big old maple with a woodsy periwinkle bank downhill on the right; to the left John St petered out in clustered houses perched at funny hillside angles whose driveways ate up the steep terminus. Hubbard ran on level. Above the houses the small mountain rose up, mantled by trees. After the crossroads old townhouses bordered the left, charming and shaded under big old maples. A small brick warehouse lay below on the right. Hubbard St ended in a dirt turnaround under an old blue house on the left; the right dropped off in a brushy cliff. A gravel road led down past the warehouse and around below the cliff, while from the end of Hubbard a jeep path clambered up the mountain-crest. The children took the road and entered the woods. It went down under young maples growing on a steep bank under Hubbard, turning in a big loop around old trucks in a wide flat yard, then entered the woods below the brush-cliff. Lumpy brown leaf-floor rolled down to the level dirt road, stooping dark-green hemlocks shadowing it. Big grey rocks stuck up from the earth, until they rose like low walls either side of the road: for this had once been a railroad, still paved with cindery gravel and slag, though the rails had been gone for almost seventy years. A fireplace of stones was piled against beautiful rounded grey boulders beneath hemlocks above the right-hand bank, and then the sunken grade entered the cutting. It was about a hundred yards long, cleaving an outthrust root of the hill on their left. The ten-foot walls were blocky and broken, grown with beautiful leaning hemlocks, thick laurel and moss. Black birch filled the air with brilliant new-green. “I love this place.” said Charlene. “I know, isn’t it ''cool! This is First Cutting. I wonder what they did with that huge steel tank.” “Scrap metal.” The railroad, slowly bending around west, emerged onto a high fill. Birch arched overhead. The ridge towered more than twenty feet above the forest; it felt like they were running along the backbone of the world. On the left the mountain plunged steeply in slopes of laurel, birch and linden down to the hollow beside the fill. The road surface was concave, low in the middle and sandy with high banks. The Ruin lay below on the right, where Mad River flowed behind the trees: the concrete-slab-roofed basement floor of one of the deserted factories the 1955 flood had devoured. It was a wide, flat, dismal room, with worn rainbow graffiti peeling off the damp walls, dark and wet. “Steve, something really weird happened this morning.” said Chris. “What?” “I got up early, and—“ “Okay, '' that’s '' weird enough.” said Charlene. She then began snickering wildly while the boys both rolled their eyes. “Go on.” said Stephen. “Did you have another crazy dream?” “Of course I did, but I’ll tell you that in a minute.” He described his sinister encounter under the bridge. “That’s creepy.” shuddered Charlene. “I’d have run screaming.” “Yeah, you’re a girl.” “Hey, he could have been a child molester!” “Perverts never talk like that.” said Chris. “And he never tried to come near me. And besides, he wasn’t…creepy that way. More like the kind of creepy you get when reading some really good and peculiar fairy tale. Like The Snow Queen, where Kay has a sliver of frozen glass in his heart and has to try arranging the ice-shard puzzle to the word ETERNITY…it’s really hard to describe, it’s like when you see something incredibly awesome like a wild mountain view, and then the sun breaks out.” “Whoo.” murmered Charlene. “I think I get you.” They had entered a shorter but deeper cutting, black leafy mud making the floor swampy. Hemlocks overhung them, and dense low laurel hugged the mossy earth, and up in the laurel, the boys knew, was a caved-in plywood shanty. They emerged out onto another ridge. The river, closer now, foamed and splashed over rocks a good thirty feet below; they saw bits of it through the hemlocks. Ahead the grade ended at a round turning place: a large section had been washed clear out in the massive flood of 1955, and the Army Corps of Engineers built the massive flood berm of layered rocks and earth, 200 feet high, across the gorge: the spillway emptied down a rock-floored cutting of the old grade, spilling out over the sharp black rocks of the washed-out section’s foundation in a cascade. These falls were now dry since the dam’s disappearance; the river having reverted to it’s old bed, a V-gash in the valley floor below the falls. A path led from the turnaround through pines to the foot of the falls, and what had been a lovely open knob of yellow pine needles above the river. Some idiot had felled all the young pines and hemlocks clothing the falls and piled them into a leaky shelter, now a big tangle of brown dead limbs. The three children squished down a wet part of the path where a spring emerged, and clambered about in the sharp algae-blacked dry rocks. Springs fed a few rockpools and water trickled between them. Over on the right the river babbled out of his narrow valley, spreading in a dozen channels around trees and bushes protected by larger rocks; some of these were torn up, others dying. They didn’t see him at first, as he looked just like a chunk of rock until he moved. He was crouched froglike on one of the large outthrusts of the old falls, one knee supporting his chin. His long face was abstracted, as one in deep thought, his heavy-lidded eyes distant and wandering. It was the Wizard. “Hey, it’s the Wizard!” exclaimed Chris. “Oh my gosh, I didn’t even see him.” said Charlene. “Hi, WizZord.” said Stephen. The Wizard did not smile. He merely transferred his strange, distant, brooding gaze from the trees to them, gazing from one to another in turn. “Which of you is Christopher?” he said abruptly. His voice was quiet and low-keyed, but there was something in it that sent an odd prickle through them. Charlene suddenly knew why exactly they called this man Wizard. It was a wizard’s voice. “Um, that’s me.” said Chris. “Do you, like, have a name?” said Charlene. “Sure he does; he’s the Wizard!” laughed Stephen. A wintery smile crossed the Wizard’s face. “You might call me Old Nuncle Jimmy, if you ever grew tired of Wizard. Either will do. Though I must warn you I am no true Wizard, and if (as seems not unlikely) you meet a real one, be wary of how you speak to them. For they are subtle and quick to anger.” “Um, Wizard…who are the Men in Brown?” said Chris. “And how’d you know my name?” “I am of the Men in Brown.” said Nuncle Jimmy. “Why you seem to have been singled out so I cannot tell; there is in you apparently nothing that would set you apart or make you other than ordinary. But there it is; instruments are seldom the ones that would seem fit for the purpose, and the wise look at their unfitness and wonder how on earth they could have been chosen.” “Yes, but…” “I don’t know myself,” the Wizard cut him off, shortly. “I only know I am numbered among them, but who they all are or why they have been gathered was not revealed by the one who named me Brown. I figure I’ll know in due time, and meanwhile I’ve leeks to gather.” He unfolded himself to his feet, tall and lanky and nimble. Swiftly he sprang and scrambled down the rocks, and was gone. May arrived, with copious rain and gloom as if to make up for the amazingly dry April. Though the streams filled back up, the lake outlet brook was still a trickle, and the lake remained a whole foot below summer level. But the weekend of Winsted’s Pet Parade dawned gorgeously clear and warm, with the new green thickening the hills and making the dull winter woods marvelous and bright. There was a festive air all around town, for after a long cautious winter and spring of nervously waiting to see what wackiness would crop up '' this'' year, nothing save the eerily dry April had yet shown up. Perhaps the weirdness was past, and the town could heave a collective sigh and relax. Or perhaps the world really would end in 2012! “It can’t end, ‘cause there’s no Antichrist yet.” Argued Christopher. “Have you noticed how popular the President is?” Stephen shot back. As more perceptive Christians they knew one mark of the Son of Perdition was his enormous popularity. The day was bright, almost blinding, with a hot sun, the kind that brings out a sour sort of smell in your skin even after you’ve gotten into the shade. A clear whiteness filled the bright trees and the bright, grey Main Street. Cars were parked all up and down the street on both sides, the boys noticed when their family had settled finally on a spot under the lindens at the daycare house, where High St met Main. The Methodist church, tall and square and built of grey stone, stood on the far corner. It looked like a castle. The cars were mostly dark, a few cranberry or white, and clumps of people moved among them. The crowds were all down at the far end, near St. Joseph’s on its’ little hill. A balloon man trotted by, pulling a wagon stuffed with colorful fancy balloons. The air was very soft, but a cool, blade-like sort of warmth unlike the cloying warmth of some of the more humid days. There was a keen, wailing, clear sound of bagpipes, and the parade had begun: three veterans and a piper, all alone and nobody behind for miles. Far behind them came cars with local dignitaries: the mayor, the beauty queen, and so on. Finally with a flash of deep blue shirts came the Gilbert High School band, a stirring tune sounding from the magnificent instruments. Chris looked around at the gathered people, seated by cars or on lawns. Things stood out among them, here and there: a young red-haired man with sharp features perched on the sea-green rail of the footbridge across the street (which sprang out across the valley of the river that flowed there, between Main Street and the hill that shut in the lake), a dignified old man seated in a green folding lawn-seat nearby, with long white hair and beard against his brown dress pants and plaid jacket; a person he instantly recognized as none other than John Wimbledon strolling up the sidewalk under a large-brimmed straw hat; two tall strange figures in the edge of the trees above the river gulch who seemed to be wearing costumes, the Wizard himself clomping down the footbridge, and near at hand a ragged-looking older man in brown corduroys and a red-brown flannel shirt. Wizard’s late, smiled Christ to himself. But now the band was past, and behind came some actual pets. A straggling stream of little girls and frowsy moms walking dogs or pulling wagons with rather fuddled chickens inside cages, shambled down Main St. There was even one cage with a cat in it. Behind them a strange old man was walking, using a long worn staff to help him. He was short and bent, but walked quickly enough, with rather abrupt movements like a bird; and his head moved like a bird’s as well, in quick jerky motions as it turned this way and that. He had a brown leather jacket, very old and worn, and thick leathery-looking pants, and a rough brown fedora long since squashed half out of shape above his white hair and short white beard. A hush spread ahead of him as everyone began to see just what this old man was marching with. Beside him shambled a big rough black bear, the size of a large sheepdog, looking around a little apprehensively at the crowd. The old man laid a soothing hand on its’ muzzle and walked on. After the strange old man had gone on down the street, Christopher found himself following. Down the steadily more crowded sidewalk he pressed. The cranberry-shirted band of another school sounded behind him. The Beardsley Library banner followed, but instead of the troop of chattering teens Chris had always called the Library Gang, there were only a couple librarians holding the banner. He paid them no attention. The man with the bear was all that mattered. When the parade ended, Chris wanted to talk to him. Thus it was that he was the only one to see how the man with the bear vanished. As they neared St. Joseph’s Chris saw police hurrying toward the duo: clearly someone had finally realized this was not part of the parade attractions. While they were still pushing through the crowds there was a sudden flash and earsplitting boom above the police station, and everyone’s head jerked instantly in that direction, except Christopher. And he was the only one who saw the old man, abandoning his quick shambling gait, spring onto the bear’s back like a pony and the animal give a mighty leap right over the guardrail and into the river beneath. There was a quick splashing from the shallow rocky stream and then motion in the brush mantling the far bank, where the ballfields lay, and a way out of the town. The police looked all around but somehow never seemed to figure out that the river was there, and then headed back to the station, baffled and furious looks on their faces. It was in all the papers next day, of course: “Bear crashes parade”, “Man walks bear in pet parade”, and so on. From these the excited boys learned that no such attraction had been planned or notified; the man in leather had simply stepped out of some parked cars at the corner and taken his place in the parade. When police and newspaper reporters searched the area nobody seemed to have seen him past St. Joseph’s. “It’s another one.” Christopher said. “Another of the Men in Brown.” “How many again?” said Stephen. “Nine, according to Mr. Wimble-Wimbledon. Hey, do you know, he was there too, I saw him just before the bear came by and then I forgot everything else, he was wearing a big straw hat…” “Oh yeah, I did see somebody with a hat.” “…Yeah, so there’s nine, he said. We’ve met the Wizard, Mr. Wimbledon, and now this guy. Well, seen him, at any rate.” “Call him Beorn.” “Naw, Beorn only changed to a bear—oh, wait, he ruled over bears, too. Wouldn’t it be cool if it really '' was'' him?” “The'' Hobbit’''s just a story, Chris.” said Stephen patiently. “Besides, Beorn died, didn’t he, before Lord of the Rings? Gloin only refers to Beornings.” “Maybe he came back from the dead.” “He’s only a concept. A concept can’t resurrect.” “Where’d you get that from?” Stephen laughed. “Some guy on one of the forums was really irritated when fangirls said they wanted to marry some movie character—I think it was from Hunger Games—and he says ‘Ohkaaay. You can’t marry Peeta because he doesn’t exist. He is a concept. A concept cannot get married.’ Or something like that.” “Wow.” said Chris. “That’s good.” They were interrupted by their mom holloring from the porch if Chris could bike down to Super Stop & Shop and buy some eggs. “Mom, can’t you drive?” he wailed. There was a hill on the way there. “Have you paid any attention lately? What was the price last time we gassed up?” “Four dollars and three cents a gallon.” muttered Chris. “That’s right. If you boys want me to drive you on church field trips or sports, you might as well learn to do a few things yourselves. I know you’re old enough to be trusted with money. You’ll take your brother, of course, as I don’t want you to bike through town by yourself.” '' “What??”'' Stephen wailed. “Come on, you sissy, it’s only a mile and a half.” tormented his brother. “It’s hot out, and there’s a hill…” complained Stephen. “So, we can go jump in the river on the way back.” The bike through central Winsted was like an obstacle course. There were always people on the broad Main St sidewalks, and the close-build storefronts were always disgorging more people just when you were passing. There were no shade trees here and the sun was indeed hot. By the time they reached the Green and had navigated McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts (whose driveways were liable to have cars teleport in from alternate dimensions to rocket out into traffic with maniac disregard for anyone crossing) they were too tired to do more than walk their bikes up the hill. At the top the superhighway Rt 8 began on its’ way south to Waterbury, with an exit lane across the road and a two-forked entrance on the right, a triangle island between forks. These had to be navigated, and then there was the bridge above the highway exit, and another intersection on the far side. A major road came down the steep hill from Torringford on the right, and across the street was a smaller road marked Old New Hartford Rd. “Hey, let’s see where that goes!” said Chris. “If there’s a hill, we’re turning around.” said Stephen. “Fine. I just wanna see if it’s a shortcut.” They crossed at the light (a perilous feat, involving precision timing) and biked along the back road. It ran on a ledge above a hilly meadow between it and Main, a wedge that widened gradually. The masonry of a barn foundation lay dug into the bank beneath the road, shaded by a huge green maple. On the left a suburb of bungalows and shade trees stretched on up Wallens Hill. Then woods closed in, broken by the odd farmhouse or two, falling ever steeper on the right, a hill on the left. The road was narrow, pleasantly lumpy, and rustic. There wasn’t even a yellow line down the middle. There were no hills, as Stephen had feared, but there were a few slow ups and downs. They passed the entrance of Regional High School—delved canyon-style up the hill on the left—and approached a downhill curve. On the right an old tree hung out over the road, and a white mailbox caught their eye. It bore one word: '' Root''. Both of them slammed on their pedal-brakes and screeched to a halt as they saw the hill. “I said no hills.” said Stephen. The downslope was indeed both long and stiff, a high green tube. “Lookit that box.” said Chris. “Root. '' Think it’s a name?” “That would be so weird. Can you imagine, ‘Hey, Mr. ''Roooot!’ Root, root, root for Root!” “Root for Senate!” “I have no intention of running for Senate.” Both boys yelped and nearly fell off their bikes. Nearby, behind azalea bushes flowering soft frosting-white, was a square white house with a steep-roofed front verenda. Lindens overhung it and apple trees stood in the rolling back lawn. On the porch, looking at them, was the dignified old man Christopher had noticed at the parade. He wore rough brown pants and great leather farm boots, and had a brown-and-red plaid jacket pulled around him. His dirty-white hair fell to his shoulders and his beard was nearly as long, giving him the look of a round-headed post or barn owl. Yet when his strange old eyes rested on theirs the boys forgot the comparison. They would have pedaled on at top speed, but they dared not. “Um, sorry, we didn’t see you.” stammered Christopher. “I am not always easy to see.” the old man answered. “Come here. Tell me why my name is funny.” “Uh, Mom says we’re not supposed to talk to strangers.” The old man’s dry face gave an equally dry smile. “Talking implies equality. I do not intend to talk to you. You have laughed at my name. You are permitted, therefore, to make amends.” “We’re sorry.” “I am not appeased.” Mr. Root said. “It is needful for you to know why my name amuses, that you may understand why it is no laughing matter. I hear you’re reasonably smart. Do not tell me I have heard wrong.” “Um…what are you talking about?” said Stephen. Chris, however, was staring at Root with a strange look in his face, as one who hears faintly a compelling voice. “Why does it sound absurd for Root to be a name? Give me a reasonably intelligent answer, if you would.” The old man’s brows knotted irritably. “Uh…because it’s…” Stephen fumbled. “It’s sort of too under.” Chris blurted. “I mean, it’s kind of underneath things. Like a tree.” “A fundamental name.” the old man said softly. “A symbolic name. An elemental name. Is that what you mean?” The boys nodded, relieved. “And to hear a fundamental word like Earth or Tree, Root or Rock tossed around as a name is so discordant with its’ mystery it rouses laughter. Look inside, and tell me if this is true.” “I…guess, I mean it sounds a little like, but we weren’t quite…” said Stephen. “I know, I know.” said Mr. Root, waving one hand. “These are fundamental assumptions and subconscious motivations, and they always sound strange when you see them exposed. What I feared more was that you felt the deep mystery of the word Root as a name, and were using it as ridicule. But there was no mockery in your laughter, and so I am appeased.” “Um…thanks, mister.” said Christopher. “Are you a Man in Brown?” piped up Stephen. A broad ancient smile grew on the face of Mr. Root. “You see rightly.” he replied. “Come by again sometime, and I will tell you more.” “Can we go, Mr. Root?” said Chris. “You may, but only if you promise to return Christopher.” Root said. “I promise. but what if Mom says no?” “Then I am overruled, am I not?” Root said with a slight twinkle in his eyes. “If you go down that hill and through the valley of the deserted farm, you will meet a side street that takes you back to Main, on a level with the Stop & Shop.” “Um, thanks.” called Stephen. The boys waved and bowled down out of sight. Back to The Men in Brown